History

In recognition of the centenary of the North-West Rebellion in May 1985, the Native Studies Department at the University of Saskatchewan hosted a conference on the theme "1885 and After." The conference drew a wide audience, including Native and non-Native scholars who met to reassess the processes leading to the conflict in 1885 and the impact of the Rebellion on Native society and on the North-West.

The eighteen papers included in this volume have been arranged in two sections. The first deals with the events leading up to and including the outbreak of hostilities, while the second focusses on the transition of Native society following 1885.

The history of the colonization of the Americas by Europeans is often portrayed as a mutually beneficial process, in which ”civilization” was brought to the Natives, who in return shared their land and cultures. A more critical history might present it as a genocide in which Indigenous peoples were helpless victims, overwhelmed by European military power. In reality, neither of these views is correct. This book is more than a history of European colonization of the Americas. In this slim volume, Gord Hill chronicles the resistance by Indigenous peoples, which limited and shaped the forms and extent of colonialism. This history encompasses North and South America, the development of nation-states and the resurgence of Indigenous resistance in the post-WW2 era.

“I am going to tell you how we are treated. I am always hungry.” — Edward B., a student at Onion Lake School (1923)

“[I]f I were appointed by the Dominion Government for the express purpose of spreading tuberculosis, there is nothing finer in existence than the average Indian residential school.” — N. Walker, Indian Affairs Superintendent (1948)

For over 100 years, thousands of Aboriginal children passed through the Canadian residential school system. Begun in the 1870s, it was intended, in the words of government officials, to bring these children into the “circle of civilization,” the results, however, were far different. More often, the schools provided an inferior education in an atmosphere of neglect, disease, and often abuse.

Using previously unreleased government documents, historian John S. Milloy provides a full picture of the history and reality of the residential school system. He begins by tracing the ideological roots of the system, and follows the paper trail of internal memoranda, reports from field inspectors, and letters of complaint. In the early decades, the system grew without planning or restraint. Despite numerous critical commissions and reports, it persisted into the 1970s, when it transformed itself into a social welfare system without improving conditions for its thousands of wards. A National Crime shows that the residential system was chronically underfunded and often mismanaged, and documents in detail and how this affected the health, education, and well-being of entire generations of Aboriginal children.

A seminal collection of Haida myths and legends; now in a gorgeous new package.

The linguist and ethnographer John Swanton took dictation from the last great Haida-speaking storytellers, poets and historians from the fall of 1900 through the summer of 1901. Together they created a great treasury of Haida oral literature in written form.

Having worked for many years with these century-old manuscripts, linguist and poet Robert Bringhurst brings both rigorous scholarship and a literary voice to the English translation of John Swanton's careful work. He sets the stories in a rich context that reaches out to dozens of native oral literatures and to myth-telling traditions around the globe.

Attractively redesigned, this collection of First Nations oral literature is an important cultural record for future generations of Haida, scholars and other interested readers. It won the Edward Sapir Prize, awarded by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, and it was chosen as the Literary Editor's Book of the Year by the Times of London.

Bringhurst brings these works to life in the English language and sets them in a context just as rich as the stories themselves one that reaches out to dozens of Native American oral literatures, and to mythtelling traditions around the world.

The area between the Great Lakes and Lake Winnipeg, bounded on the north by the Hudson Bay lowlands, is sometimes known as the “Petit Nord.” Providing a link between the cities of eastern Canada and the western interior, the Petit Nord was a critical communication and transportation hub for the North American fur trade for over 200 years.

Although new diseases had first arrived in the New World in the 16th century, by the end of the 17th century shorter transoceanic travel time meant that a far greater number of diseases survived the journey from Europe and were still able to infect new communities. These acute, directly transmitted infectious diseases – including smallpox, influenza, and measles — would be responsible for a monumental loss of life and would forever transform North American Aboriginal communities.

Historical geographer Paul Hackett meticulously traces the diffusion of these diseases from Europe through central Canada to the West. Significant trading gatherings at Sault Ste. Marie, the trade carried throughout the Petit Nord by Hudson Bay Company ships, and the travel nexus at the Red River Settlement, all provided prime breeding ground for the introduction, incubation and transmission of acute disease. Hackett’s analysis of evidence in fur-trade journals and oral history, combined with his study of the diffusion behaviour and characteristics of specific diseases, yields a comprehensive picture of where, when, and how the staggering impact of these epidemics was felt.

This heavily illustrated, full colour historical narrative is a testament to the past 11,000 years of Aboriginal history in Alberta. It conveys the many challenges that Aboriginal people confronted, and celebrates their
enduring legacy. Berry and Brink explore grassroots political and cultural movements of the 1960s, contemporary self-government initiatives, and the ongoing reclamation of the Aboriginal voice.

Winner of the 1995 Ontario Historical Society Joseph Brant Award for the best book on native studies

Aboriginal Ontario: Historical Perspectives on the First Nations contains seventeen essays on aspects of the history of the First Nations living within the present-day boundaries of Ontario. This volume reviews the experience of both the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples in Southern Ontario, as well as the Algonquians in Northern Ontario. The first section describes the climate and landforms of Ontario thousands of years ago. It includes a comprehensive account of the archaeologists' contributions to our knowledge of the material culture of the First Nations before the arrival of the Europeans. The essays in the second and third sections look respectively at the Native peoples of Southern Ontario and Northern Ontario, from 1550 to 1945. The final section looks at more recent developments. The volume includes numerous illustrations and maps, as well as an extensive bibliography.

John Loxley has worked in community economic development as a practitioner, advisor, teacher and scholar for over 30 years. The wealth of that experience is reflected in this book, which grapples with the conceptual and political complexities of addressing northern and Aboriginal poverty. Loxley examines a number of possible approaches to economic development, placing each within a broader theoretical and policy perspective, and considering its growth potential and class impact. Accessible and theoretically sophisticated, the book blends international development theory with northern Canadian and Aboriginal realities. It includes an important chapter on traditional Aboriginal values and culture and their relationship to the land.

This collection of eight stories represents an introduction to Niits'powahsini, the Blackfoot language, and includes a pronunciation guide and Blackfoot-to-English glossary.

In these stories Ikkinainihki, "Gentle Singer," recalls events from childhood and tells of her Elders, the cold weather of the Plains, a crying spirit, rattlesnakes, and more. This collection opens with a prayer and a small essay on the importance of preserving Niitsi'powahsini.

Blackfoot Stories of Old will be of great value to native speakers, new learners, linguists, and those looking for insights into the Blackfoot people, who live in present-day Alberta and Montana.

Volume 1: The History and Practice of Indigenous Plant Knowledge
Volume 2: The Place and Meaning of Plants in Indigenous Cultures and Worldviews

Nancy Turner has studied Indigenous peoples' knowledge of plants and environments in northwestern North America for over forty years. In Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge, she integrates her research into a two-volume ethnobotanical tour-de-force. Drawing on information shared by Indigenous botanical experts and collaborators, the ethnographic and historical record, and from linguistics, palaeobotany, archaeology, phytogeography, and other fields, Turner weaves together a complex understanding of the traditions of use and management of plant resources in this vast region. She follows Indigenous inhabitants over time and through space, showing how they actively participated in their environments, managed and cultivated valued plant resources, and maintained key habitats that supported their dynamic cultures for thousands of years, as well as how knowledge was passed on from generation to generation and from one community to another. To understand the values and perspectives that have guided Indigenous ethnobotanical knowledge and practices, Turner looks beyond the details of individual plant species and their uses to determine the overall patterns and processes of their development, application, and adaptation.

Volume 1 presents a historical overview of ethnobotanical knowledge in the region before and after European contact. The ways in which Indigenous peoples used and interacted with plants - for nutrition, technologies, and medicine - are examined. Drawing connections between similarities across languages, Turner compares the names of over 250 plant species in more than fifty Indigenous languages and dialects to demonstrate the prominence of certain plants in various cultures and the sharing of goods and ideas between peoples. She also examines the effects that introduced species and colonialism had on the region's Indigenous peoples and their ecologies.

Volume 2 provides a sweeping account of how Indigenous organizational systems developed to facilitate the harvesting, use, and cultivation of plants, to establish economic connections across linguistic and cultural borders, and to preserve and manage resources and habitats. Turner describes the worldviews and philosophies that emerged from the interactions between peoples and plants, and how these understandings are expressed through cultures’ stories and narratives. Finally, she explores the ways in which botanical and ecological knowledge can be and are being maintained as living, adaptive systems that promote healthy cultures, environments, and indigenous plant populations.

Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge both challenges and contributes to existing knowledge of Indigenous peoples' land stewardship while preserving information that might otherwise have been lost. Providing new and captivating insights into the anthropogenic systems of northwestern North America, it will stand as an authoritative reference work and contribute to a fuller understanding of the interactions between cultures and ecological systems.

This code cracking book is written for people who wish to become culturally literate in the Anishinaabe worldview. This book is suitable for both Anishinaabeg and settler allies seeking greater understanding of a worldview, tradition, and knowledge philosophy once criminalized by the Canadian Government and consequently forced underground. It is also suitable for academics, both undergraduates and graduates, interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Indigenous governance traditions.

This book focuses on events before and after the International Non-Governmental Organization Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas that was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1977. Contributions by Chief Oren Lyons, John Mohawk, and José Barreiro document the struggle for self-determination and a new era of possibility for Native nations. Position papers, including “The Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World,” present an insightful view of spiritual traditions going back thousands of years.

In a compelling and impassioned voice, Basic Call to Consciousness speaks for the basic rights of humankind and all our relations.

“The UN provides a forum to finally do away with the effects of the racist ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ foisted upon generations of Native peoples and secure a brighter future for the 300 million or so Indigenous peoples of the world.”

In 1967, the Mushuau Innu — the Aboriginal people of Labrador — were resettled on Davis Inlet by the Canadian government. Originally a land-based people, this move to the coast created cultural, economic and spiritual upheaval, and Davis Inlet became synonymous with shocking substance abuse and suicide rates. In Bathtubs but No Water, Gerry Steele offers the reader a participant observer’s perspective on Davis Inlet. An employee of the federal government working with the Mushuau Innu since 1993, Steele explores their oral history of the resettlement process, substance abuse and deaths, and argues that these problems are a direct result of the government’s lack of respect for Aboriginal peoples. In 1992, the Innu tried to regain responsibility for their future, focusing on the traditions and strengths of their own community, but government bureaucracy would not support this partnership. Steele urges the government to engage in respectful partnerships with Aboriginal communities in order to achieve positive change.